The road to fitness
After losing 190 pounds through gastric bypass surgery and starting an exercise routine, a Riggles Gap man will run in the Boston Marathon on April 21By Ashley Gurbal, agurbal@altoonamirror.com
POSTED: April 8, 2008
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Yet Cross, 52, who weighed about 360 pounds before his surgery, hasn’t thrown away his size 58 pants. After years of losing and regaining weight, the Riggles Gap man isn’t entirely convinced he’ll keep the pounds off.
But he figures running is his best bet.
“That’s the only reason I run,” he said. “It’s not like I love it — it’s the only way to keep it off.”
Cross will run in the Boston Marathon on April 21, which he qualified for after finishing the Air Force Marathon in Dayton, Ohio, in three hours and 35 minutes.
He decided to enter that marathon in August — about one month before the race, which was held Sept. 15, at the urging of a friend and fellow runner.
To prep for that race, he mostly stuck to his regular schedule: 40 minutes of walking three days a week, and 40 minutes of running three days a week, with Sundays a day of rest. He’d been doing that since he reached his goal weight in October 2002, six months after the surgery on April 8, 2002, at UPMC Presbyterian in Pittsburgh.
“I tried to get one 20-mile (run) in before the marathon,” Cross said. “I’d run 17 miles before, just to see what I could do.”
For the Boston Marathon, Cross is still sticking to his running and walking schedule, but he’s fit in three 20-mile runs this time. A father of seven and the owner of Cross Insurance Agency, he never worries about finding time to exercise.
He has gear to get him through all sorts of weather, and he’s even pulled off the road on vacation to run or walk for 40 minutes.
“I figure there’s 24 hours in a day,” he said. “I can get 40 minutes in somewhere.”
Despite his weight, Cross said he experienced few health problems before his surgery — his cholesterol levels and blood pressure were good, though he did have sleep apnea at his peak weight. Ultimately, he said it was the senior citizens he encounters in his insurance business that led him to the surgery.
“I sell insurance to people over 65,” he said. “And I saw that there were very few who were heavy that were healthy. I knew it was only a matter of time before (my weight) started messing me up.”
The decision was one his wife, Edrie Cross, said she struggled with. A former secretary at Altoona Regional Health System, she said she’d seen a lot of patients who’d had it done — with both good and bad results.
“I was scared,” she said. “I supported him in his decision, but I didn’t want him to do it. I didn’t care what he looked like, but I cared about his health.”
Gastric bypass patients are encouraged to pursue fitness after surgery, said Dr. Matthew Newlin, a general surgeon with Lexington Surgical Associates, Altoona.
“We recommend they engage in 20 to 30 minutes of dedicated exercise a day,” said Newlin, who has never treated Cross. “And more exercise is generally better.”
Most patients don’t run marathons — but neither does most of the population, Newlin said.
“Marathons are demanding of anyone, whether they’ve had the surgery or not,” he said. “I think it’s hard to stereotype, but no, it isn’t typical. But there’s no reason they couldn’t do it, either.”
Though Cross began pursuing fitness after his surgery, he said he’d always lived a pretty healthy lifestyle. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in State College, he avoids coffee, tea and alcohol.
“We believe in a law of health,” he said.
Cross has goals for the Boston Marathon: to run the entire way without stopping, like he did at the first marathon; to finish in less than four hours, and ideally do better than he did in Dayton. But exactly what happens, he said, is up to God.
“I have a lot of faith in God,” he said. “I do my part, but I know things will work out the way he wants them to work. I have faith that he knows what’s best for me.”
Mirror Staff Writer Ashley Gurbal is at 946-7435.
